Manumission
by lizziekins4
Summary: In Ancient Rome, Gladiator!Peeta fights to keep his love for Goddess!Katniss secret and to keep her safe at all costs. Rated M for language and sexual situations.


Rated E -

This is a little something I wrote for the D12 Drabbles and am currently working on subsequent chapters. I attempted to infuse a little Latin so all words in Latin are translated at the bottom. Hope you all enjoy!

Manumission (Prologue)

Manumission, to be granted freedom by my master, is my only hope— even though I volunteered for this, for her, I am a slave to their games now. I am of the _murmillones_ , a swordsman, entertaining the audiences of the Roman Republic with violence and barbarism. I slaughter men and beast alike at the will of the Emperor— for fame, for fortune, for her.

 _Katniss_.

I have fought in and won five games over the past two years, and each time she watches me— watches me from the esteemed box of the Vestals. I dare not fix my eyes upon her, for if I do, all will certainly be known. She is as radiant as the sun, as constant as the sacred flame she tends on behalf of Vesta, goddess of the hearth. She is my Goddess and I, her Gladiator.

I wait with my competitors for the beginning of the _pompa_ , the procession that will lead us into the arena. Treachery and terror drip from our sweating bodies, contemptible fear we fight to conceal at all costs. The _Sacramentum Gladiatorium_ forbids its display, the sacred oath we all took _to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten and to be killed by the sword_. Never showing fear, we pledge to die with dignity and honor, not complaint.

 _All for her…only ever for her_.

My body tenses at the thought of her. Visions of her naked and splayed before me, hands wandering over olive skin, lips suckling at dusky nipples, tongue stroking her swollen clit until orgasms overtake her again and again, sweet _gaudentium_ pulsing against my mouth. I muse over the delicate abuses I reigned over her body. " _Misella Landica_ ," I whisper with a soft chuckle to myself.

"Peeta, such obscenities," my friend Finnick exclaims quietly at my side, eyes widening. "Whose _poor little clit_ do you speak of, my friend?" My words have caught the attention of a few others who peer at me over their shoulders, eyebrows raised. My uttering is truly profane to have shocked Finnick in such a way.

"I speak of no one, Finnick," I say, clapping his shoulder and feigning gaiety. "Only of fantasy and lewdness."

Finnick knows of whom I speak. He also knows why I don't utter her name out loud, acknowledging her presence only in secret. His dilemma is similar to my own. To do so would endanger her life. As a servant in the house of the Vestals, she has taken a thirty year vow of chastity— a vow that is brutally enforced. If our indiscretions were discovered, she could be scourged and ceremoniously taken to the Colline gate, just outside the city, where she would be buried alive as punishment.

For this reason, I had never fucked her, can never fuck her until she is free to marry. Though we had done everything else, the actual act of _fututiones_ was where I had fought to restrain us, and fortunately so. That restraint was the only thing that saved her, for they had no physical evidence when the accusations came. Such an impetuous youth, I had been stupid and selfish, greedily taking anything she was willing to offer me, worshipping her body without fully understanding the danger I was putting her in, until we were discovered.

Katniss had been chosen in the _captio_ at six years of age. To be selected in the choosing ceremony at such a young age was not uncommon, being the daughter of a lame freedman, it was considered quite fortunate, and Katniss had few options. She would be taken into the service and protection of the goddess and, in exchange, would be able to covertly sustain her family's meager existence. This proved most valuable, especially after the death of her father five years later. The children of freed slaves were rarely so lucky.

I was devastated. Being only slightly older than Katniss, I only understood that my dearest friend was being taken away, and I howled incessantly for days after her departure. Continuing visions of Katniss being escorted to Vesta's temple by Pontifex Maximus Plutarch only brought on more wailing, and I took many beatings until I finally learned to contain my sniveling. My mother did not tolerate the lamenting cries of a heartbroken child, especially a child weeping over the departure of one so lowly in her eyes.

Katniss' first ten years of service to the goddess were spent as a student, so my chances of encountering her in the city were minimal. Every stolen glimpse was locked away in my heart, and chance encounters were meticulously manipulated by me to increase the odds of being in her presence, if even for the slightest of moments. She was always guarded, always chaperoned but, when she entered her next ten-year term as a servant, she was permitted more time outside of the temple and was frequently an honored guest at grand celebrations with the other priestesses. It was at one such gathering where we were formally reacquainted, and we continued to seek out each other's company throughout her eleventh and twelfth years of service to Vesta.

Growing together— and falling in love— we began finding our way into vacant rooms and far away stables, where I was schooled in the art of pleasuring Katniss' body. Kissing her until she lay breathless and trembling, lapping at the wetness in the folds of her _cunnus_ , delighting in the sweet tang I found there. Even now, I can still hear the soft moans of her pleasure, see the flush covering her skin as crushing gaudentium wracked her body, shuddering against my tongue, clenching around my fingers. The scent of her sex covered my hands, lingering there until I was forced to wash her away from my body.

"You look far too happy for one who is about to go forth and perform so treacherously in the arena, friend." Finnick eyes me warily. I jerk my fingers away from desperate nostrils, chuckling at my own foolishness, and nod in the affirmative. I have gotten carried away with my contemplations. I'm reminded that three lonely years have served well in scrubbing her scent from my fingers when I find only the smell of steel permeating my hands. I force myself to return my thoughts to why I'm here, to what I must do.

 _Will I have to kill today? Will I be_ _killed today_?

Every _munus_ , every game, the continuance of my life and the lives of the other gladiators, is arbitrarily decided by one man, the Emperor or his editor, Citizen Coriolanus. At the end of a bout, the victor gladiator is awarded a palm branch and a fat purse, if generously sponsored. But the greatest prize for all gladiators is freedom, to be manumitted by their master is their only hope for long-term survival. Very few reach their thirtieth year, dying of mortal wounds within their first ten games. At the age of twenty-three, and entering my sixth _munus_ , the odds are not in my favor.

If bested, defeated combatants are either spared or killed by the victor with a fatal blow delivered between the shoulder blades or neck. It all depends on the mood of the crowd and the mood of the editor, both of which can be fickle. He is supposed to follow the crowd, the will of the people, but that doesn't always happen, and we have all been forced to kill popular victors, rising stars of the arena whose lives are cut short on a whim and without remorse, except our own.

These contradictions have affected a waning in the popularity of the _munera_. The games pitting man against man seem to be losing their appeal among the citizenry, and certain aspects have already been banned many times over. Constantine the First began whittling away at the practices of the _munus_ in the year 315, though they have stubbornly continued on.

Rumors of outlawing the games have been circulating since I first agreed to enter the gladiator training school. This was near the seventy-fifth anniversary of Constantine's initial interference, three years ago. Little has changed except the decline of bouts advertised as matches _sine missione_ because the crowds peppered with newly reformed Christians find the death matches distasteful and prefer mercy over massacre.

But now rumors abound that the gladiatorial munera, and the barbary contained within, have garnered the attention of Emperor Theodosius, who finds the whole spectacle to be repugnant. The growing number of newly reformed Christians in the Senate sees the pagan _munera_ as equally abhorrent, and they speak of banning all pagan festivals where the man to man combatis most popular, even speaking of banning the worshipping of our deities…like Vesta.

I'm inclined to agree.

Citizen Haymitch, my mentor and _lanista_ , manages all the gladiators on behalf of Citizen Seneca, my Master. Haymitch assures me that change is coming, and some days I'm inclined to believe him. Most days I am not. For now, I have no choice but to trust him, trust that he will bargain with sponsors on my behalf, since part of my winnings are siphoned off to Katniss' family, and seek my manumission when the time is right.

All I have to do is stay alive.

But until then, I continue to fight for my love. I fight to keep her secret and to keep her safe. I fight to meet the immoral demands of my blackmailer.

And I hope.

I hope I live to fight another day. I hope I live to love her another night. But if I fail, I hope to die well.

Murmillones- gladiators specializing in the utilization of swords and shields

Pompa – parade

Gaudens- orgasm (plural gaudentium)

Misella Landica – poor little clitoris (landica was considered to be highly profane in ancient Rome)

Futitiones- fucking

Captio- The choosing ceremony where young girls were selected by the Pontifex Maximus to become priestesses

Cunnus – cunt

Munus – games

Munera- man to man combat

Sine Missione – without mercy

Lanista – manager of the gladiators


End file.
